Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun

by John Prados

  Admiral Yamamoto had set in motion initiatives that led to the climax of the campaign. At Cactus, General Vandegrift and his colleagues were winding down, congratulating themselves on defeating a big enemy attack. At SOPAC the staffs were grasping at every straw to cobble together viable carrier forces. No Allied commander, whether on Guadalcanal, at SOPAC, or at Pearl Harbor, had any inkling of what was about to engulf them.

  * There are important discrepancies over both whether Turner’s “extra” search was carried out, and the scope of the Task Force 61 afternoon scouting pattern. The accounts of Bruce Loxton with Chris Coulthard-Clark, on the one hand, and John B. Lundstrom, on the other, investigate these in the greatest depth. Lundstrom, in particular, maintains that Fletcher’s afternoon search reached to within thirty miles of Mikawa’s position, though he presents no direct evidence for that.

  III.

  A CRIMSON TIDE

  Chester Nimitz had had a bellyful. There were the day-to-day frustrations of managing war across the far-flung Pacific and the pressures of finding ships and planes to sustain his line commanders. His Washington masters demanded answers Nimitz did not have, and forced him to defend subordinates in whom he had his own doubts. Both King and Nimitz had lost faith in Frank Fletcher as Pacific carrier chief. King was very critical of Admiral Ghormley in the South Pacific. Early in September the COMINCH and CINCPAC held another of their periodic get-togethers at San Francisco, joined by Navy secretary James Forrestal, just returned from the South Pacific. Ernie King wanted assurances on Ghormley. Forrestal backed the SOPAC, which pleased Nimitz, but returning to Pearl Harbor the CINCPAC found a letter from Ghormley that revived his concerns. Between diatribes on British colonials, dark expressions of suspicion about Ernest J. King, and fears of diminished carrier strength (at a time the Wasp had yet to be sunk), Ghormley defended his cautious tactics and suggested he needed no greater authority—where many agreed operational command was precisely what SOPAC lacked.

  Admiral Nimitz decided to visit the South Pacific himself. The seaplane carrying his party alighted on the water at Nouméa on September 28. The CINCPAC boarded flagship Argonne. Also there were General Henry H. (“Hap”) Arnold, leader of the Army Air Force, returning from an inspection of MacArthur’s command, and General George Kenney, who had come with Arnold for the conference. Nimitz got an earful. Bob Ghormley had worked in his little office on the Argonne for months. He had not left the ship, not to visit Marines on Guadalcanal, not even to coordinate with MacArthur. When Hap Arnold chided Ghormley for his sedentary manner, the SOPAC commander, his back up, told off the Army air boss in no uncertain terms. No one could question Ghormley on how he exercised command.

  Nimitz and Ghormley both knew they had been pleading with the Army for planes. The CINCPAC also knew, even if Ghormley did not, that as an informal member of the Joint Chiefs, Arnold had resisted additional aircraft for the Pacific, even torpedoing already approved programs in favor of sending more to Europe. Only recently had Arnold agreed to provide some of the new, higher-performance P-38 fighters to the South Pacific. Antagonizing Hap Arnold was not smart, even less where Hap had a point. The SOPAC’s exhaustion was obvious even to George Kenney. “I liked Ghormley,” Kenney recorded, “but he looked tired and really was tired. I don’t believe his health was any too good and I thought, while we were talking, that it wouldn’t be long before he was relieved.”

  There was more. Admiral Nimitz had discovered that the Washington, a new fast battleship assigned to SOPAC, had been left behind at Tongatabu, far from the battle zone. Ghormley pleaded fuel shortages. SOPAC was deficient on tankers, but the harbor was full of merchantmen awaiting cargo transshipment—theater logistics were a nightmare. And the admiral still resisted running warships up to contest the nightly Japanese dominance of Ironbottom Sound. Ghormley had been defensive on this when writing CINCPAC, and Nimitz nudged him now, suggesting he had been holding too tightly on to his cruiser-destroyer strike force.

  Twice during the conference aides entered with action messages for the SOPAC, and both times the admiral seemed to have no clue what to do. Then came an eye-opening exchange between Ghormley and Kenney. SOPAC officers naturally appealed to the SOWESPAC air commander for mass strikes on Rabaul. Kenney replied that his airmen wanted to knock out Rabaul’s airfields, even burn down the town, but that several requirements of the New Guinea fight had to be met first. Kenney refused to say when Rabaul might be attacked. Admiral Ghormley responded that he appreciated what SOWESPAC was doing and wished them luck over Rabaul when they got there. Nimitz bristled at such flaccidity.

  Next day Admiral Nimitz hopped a B-17 flight to Cactus. Even now Ghormley failed to seize the moment to visit the front. The aircraft went off course in stormy weather and found Guadalcanal almost by chance—CINCPAC’s air staff officer had to use a National Geographic map. They were an hour late, landing in rain, taxiing through mud, then disgorging Nimitz, disappointing Marines who hoped the plane carried nurses or chocolate. General Vandegrift, who wished Nimitz to see the real conditions under which his men fought, was privately pleased.

  Vandegrift met the plane and squired the admiral around Henderson, then to see Bloody Ridge and some of the perimeter. Later they joined Roy Geiger for a nuts-and-bolts talk on flying planes from Cactus. The two boss men talked long into the night on everything from naval regulations to Vandegrift’s mission of defending Henderson, which he felt was threatened by Kelly Turner’s latest brainstorm—creating a new air base elsewhere on Cactus. It must have gratified Nimitz when the Marine, thinking about aggressive ship handling in Ironbottom Sound, advocated changing Navy regs to make skippers more venturesome, less anxious about running their ships aground. That was exactly what a young Lieutenant Nimitz had been charged with so many years before.

  In the morning Admiral Nimitz awarded a number of medals, including the Navy Cross to Alexander Vandegrift. A dozen recipients were Cactus fliers. Then Vandegrift bundled the admiral into his B-17, wanting to get him out before rain turned Henderson into mud or the Japanese noontime raid hit. The aircraft failed on its first try and had to wait for a break in the weather. Back in Nouméa, Chester Nimitz ordered Ghormley to upgrade the facilities on Cactus, providing Quonset huts for the airmen, Marston mats for the entire runway, better fuel and ordnance storage, plus reinforcements. He overrode SOPAC’s objections about garrisoning islands far from the combat zone. Returning to Pearl Harbor, Nimitz professed himself satisfied with the situation in the South Pacific, though in truth he was far from happy. Admiral Nimitz told Time magazine the men on the spot “will hold what they have and eventually start rolling northward.”

  TWO WALKS IN THE SUN

  The advent of the 7th Marines afforded Alexander Vandegrift fresh opportunities. The Marine general was not content on the defensive. As a young officer he had served in China at the outset of its civil war and knew the costs of passivity, shown by the Chinese nationalists there. Happy to make an incursion with the Marine Raiders when he brought them over from Tulagi, Vandegrift did the same with his reinforcements now. He probed Japanese positions. Aerial photography showed the main body of Japanese stood west of a river called the Matanikau. The Marines knew little more than that. A probe would reveal the situation. It would also invigorate Marines who had sat far too long in their foxholes.

  Vandegrift nominated Red Mike Edson to lead and told him to use any troops he wanted. Elevated to command the 5th Marine Regiment, Edson selected one of its battalions, included his old 1st Raider Battalion, and called on the fresh 7th Regiment for a unit too. The latter choice fell on Lieutenant Colonel Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller’s 1st Battalion, 7th Marines (1/7), a solid unit led by a famous Marine. The Raiders and the 1/7 were to swing to the south, skirting Mount Austen and crossing the river to establish precisely where the enemy might be. The 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, would be at the Matanikau’s mouth in reserve.

  Nothing went according to Edson’s plan. The overland trek across foothills, through j
ungle and elephant grass, slowed to a crawl. Chesty Puller’s 1/7 tarried. The Marine Raiders got into a fierce firefight, climbed a hill to obtain better positions, and ended up defending themselves. Lieutenant Colonel Samuel B. Griffith, who had succeeded Edson in charge, was badly wounded and his deputy killed. Puller’s men followed the Matanikau to the sea, unaware the Raiders were trapped behind them. Chesty had sent a reinforced company back to base as bearers and guards for wounded, and these men were commandeered for a rescue mission to the Raiders. As a result of bombs that wrecked Vandegrift’s radio center, a message from Griffith had been misunderstood to mean the Raiders were on the far side of the Matanikau. So division called on Jack Clark of the naval support unit, who sent Higgins boats to carry the 1/7 Marines to save the Raiders. But there was no one to rescue, and the relief party was itself surrounded just inland from the beach. Puller and Edson were standing together at the river mouth when the Higgins boats chugged past, ignoring their frantic efforts to wave off the craft. Finally Puller boarded destroyer Ballard offshore and signaled his trapped men to move off in another direction. They were extracted, but not before Coast Guardsman Douglas A. Munro, diverting the enemy with some of the Higgins boats, fell dead. The fiasco cost 140 men.

  September gave way to October, with General Vandegrift deciding to extend his perimeter to the Matanikau. He planned a new operation using six full battalions, almost half his troops, under direct command. This time most of Edson’s 5th Marines advanced along the coast; the 2/7 would cross the Matanikau and take up blocking positions, while Puller’s battalion and the reinforced 3/2 Marines made a right hook inland and marched to the sea. Puller would capture Point Cruz. The Japanese might be pocketed. In that case Edson should continue over the river, pass Point Cruz, and make for the enemy base at Kokumbona.

  The operation began early on October 7. Red Mike quickly ran into trouble and asked for help. Vandegrift sent the 1st Raiders. All stalled. Blissfully ignorant of American plans and intent on reaching good jump-off positions for their own offensive, General Maruyama of the Sendai Division had ordered his Aoba Detachment to advance also. The result was fighting on both banks of the Matanikau. Rain delayed movement late into the next afternoon. Some Marines in the enveloping force wavered, and neither 3/2 nor 1/7 could complete the encirclement. That afternoon Vandegrift received a vexing dispatch from Ghormley. SOPAC intelligence believed a large Imperial Navy task force was on the way. Though by then he had three battalions across the river, Vandegrift decided to pull back and defend the Matanikau line. On October 9 Marines began laying out new defenses.

  Japanese troops were indeed marshaling for a big push, though intelligence was wrong about timing. On their side everything depended upon the buildup. Arrival of the 2nd Sendai Division would be the leading edge, dribbling in from the Tokyo Express. Lieutenant General Maruyama Masao arrived between the first and second Matanikau battles. Maruyama’s October 1 order of the day—captured by the Americans—was highly suggestive. “This is the decisive battle,” Maruyama had said, “a battle in which the rise or fall of the Japanese Empire will be decided. If we do not succeed in the occupation of these islands, no one should expect…to return alive.” Lieutenant General Hyakutake landed on Guadalcanal on October 9 with his Seventeenth Army forward headquarters. His own plan echoed Maruyama’s, stating, “The operation to surround and recapture Guadalcanal will truly decide the fate of the control of the entire Pacific area.”

  Hyakutake left his chief of staff, Major General Miyazaki Shuichi, at Rabaul as a relay between the battlefront and IGHQ. Lieutenant General Sado Tadayoshi’s 38th Division had begun moving up from Borneo, and liaison officers were already at Rabaul. Special provisions were made for the 150mm heavy guns of the Army’s 4th Artillery Regiment, supposed to help neutralize Henderson. A Navy delegation visited Guadalcanal to survey conditions and reported that for effective bombardment the guns would need to be on the west bank of the Matanikau—one reason the Japanese contested this ground so fiercely and ordered that Aoba Detachment attack.

  The Tokyo Express had gone into high gear. Some troops would complete their voyage to Starvation Island by ant runs—the Japanese employed enough barges to deliver half a dozen loads every day. There were four rat missions during the last week of September, and the Navy ran the Tokyo Express almost nightly during the first half of October. The Army’s heavy equipment, in particular tanks and the 150mm guns, would arrive on a pair of missions by seaplane carriers Nisshin and Chitose. The long-ballyhooed “high-speed convoy” would deliver the balance of the Army troops. Hyakutake had scheduled his offensive for October 21. The Imperial Navy bent every effort to make that possible.

  POTENT FORCES

  In the South Pacific, Allied fleets deployed thin resources to meet vast demands. Destroyers were especially hard-pressed in SOPAC. Not only were they vital for convoy protection and to cross Torpedo Junction, but they had to sweep harbor entrances during the entry or exit of fleet units, screen the task forces, conduct antisubmarine patrols, protect oilers refueling the fleet at sea, bombard enemy shores, and engage the Japanese fleet. American ships maintained one of several levels of alert. The highest form of readiness, battle stations, was called Condition 1. In Condition 2 half the guns were manned and the ship prepared to maneuver. Condition 3 was for normal cruising. Vessels in these waters almost never set Condition 3. Battle stations were the norm every day at dawn, whenever approaching Guadalcanal, often in its anchorage, and anytime action impended. Mostly skippers set Condition 2. This cycle of constant medium to high readiness played havoc with men’s lives—sailors had to eat on the run or at their action stations, grab sleep when possible, and perform at peak despite their constant demanding work. Guadalcanal convoys were timed to enter the eastern approach, the Lengo Channel, before dawn, arriving early at the anchorage. Escort commanders decided whether to up-anchor and skedaddle when things got too hot. The importance of unloading usually had them standing in Ironbottom Sound when the JNAF came, though ships might get under way to avoid damage.

  Task Force 64, the SOPAC cruiser-destroyer flotilla, had been reconstituted since Savo Island. Still, with SOPAC’s meager forces and the available warships constantly called upon for anything and everything, it was difficult to prepare for surface combat. Rear Admiral Norman Scott led the unit. Scott had skippered one of the light cruisers that escaped Savo because she had been in the anchorage to protect the transports. He had no intention of allowing that tragedy to repeat. The Imperial Navy had had better night tactics. Scott made his ships practice night maneuvers whenever they could be spared. Gunnery exercises were numerous. At least twice in late September, Admiral Scott held night maneuvers with his complete force.

  The Americans had one key advantage with their radar, then a newfangled gizmo, and a word constructed of an acronym that stood for “radio detection and ranging.” The technical development of radar had gained momentum quickly. An SC-type radar used longer-wavelength pulses, well suited to detecting targets at altitude, hence its utility for discovering enemy aircraft. The innovation of powered revolving antennae increased coverage to a full 360 degrees, and that of the “planned position indicator” enabled radarmen to “see” targets in a spatial relationship to the emitter. This became the basis for the aircraft carrier’s practice of positive control over intercepting fighters, vectoring them to engage specific targets. The SC radar was becoming widely distributed and now equipped all battleships and aircraft carriers, many cruisers, and late-model destroyers. But with its long radio wavelength (150 centimeters), the SC equipment had poor target discrimination closer to the surface, where signals were absorbed by landmasses and vegetation or broke up amid wave action. A new machine, the SG-type radar, had a micro waveform (10 centimeters) that promised excellent performance close to the surface, discriminating ships from land, even vessels of different sizes, and this became the basis for radar-directed gunnery. So far only the newest vessels had that equipment. The Japanese were far behind
, their first, primitive radars installed in the summer of 1942.

  By October a number of Norman Scott’s warships featured SC radars, and a couple had the SG-type also. Integrating technology into seamanship posed the next great challenge. The use of radar data in gun laying was one headache—could it be translated directly into direction and azimuth instructions or should it be fed to gun directors? Another problem was the effect of gunnery on radar. In a number of ships, when main batteries fired, the radars were knocked off-line and had to be repaired. These problems would eventually be worked out, and the first practical solutions came at Guadalcanal.

  When SOPAC knew the Tokyo Express was coming, Task Force 62, Kelly Turner’s amphibious force, might strengthen convoy escorts with cruisers, or Scott could bring his surface action group up to engage them. In October, the operating tempos of the two sides meshed to produce the first round of what became a crucial passage. Initial contenders were the JNAF and Tokyo Express versus the Cactus Air Force. Anxious to prepare the way for the Japanese Army, the Navy sent bombers by day, the Tokyo Express at night. With Nimitz still returning to Pearl Harbor, the South Pacific erupted.

  The Eleventh Air Fleet opened with a fighter sweep on October 2. Bombers, included as decoys, turned back short of Cactus, and most of the Zeroes went on. Japanese airmen downed six Wildcats, including those of two pilots Nimitz had just decorated, damaging several more. Tsukahara’s fliers repeated the formula the next day, but Cactus air was prepared, dispatching nine JNAF fighters and badly hitting another. That was a critical day at sea also. Seaplane carrier Nisshin steamed down The Slot carrying nine of the Japanese guns, their gunners, and General Maruyama. Scout bombers found her late in the afternoon but were driven off by Zeroes. The SBDs jumped Nisshin that night while unloading. The ship sprang a leak from a near miss, and Captain Komazawa Katsumi cut short the mission with two artillery pieces still aboard. The Cactus Air Force struck twice again, missed, and B-17s tried their luck too, but were put off their aim by a Chitose floatplane crashing into a bomber, shearing off a wing. The responsible airman, Warrant Officer Katsuki Kiyomi, actually survived the collision and parachuted to safety.